Withdrawal System Earns CH2M HILL an Award

Jan 16, 2009

CH2M HILL won a 2008 Be Award of Excellence in the “Sustaining the Environment” category for its Round Butte Dam Selective Water Withdrawal system. The project is featured in “The Year in Infrastructure 2008,” available online from Bentley Systems, a company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for infrastructure, at www.bentley.com/YearInInfrastructure2008.

The project team was tasked with creating a method for modifying the surface-current directions of the Deschutes and Crooked rivers in Oregon to re-establish the anadromous fish runs above the dam . Using MicroStation and the TriForma Extension, the project team developed a 3-D model to visualize the design as it progressed, drive the engineering data, and coordinate and construct the components. Composed of a steel-and-concrete floating platform, the new system selectively diverts water from specific depths of the lake and simultaneously diverts migrating fish from the turbine intake. The system allows the fish to enter into a fish-handling area more easily, provides a fish-collection system, and ensures the released water complies with Clean Water Act quality standards.

This project could only have been completed using the innovative visualization capabilities built into Bentley applications,” said Wally Bennett, project manager, CH2M HILL. “ Had we chosen a different method for this project, the cost would have been much higher and design time would have taken much longer. Indeed, the final geometry of the proposed structure would have been difficult to accomplish without Bentley’s 3-D tools.”